The University of Alabama’s mascot is an elephant named Big Al.
Why is the Alabama mascot an elephant? It’s a question that has plagued college football fans for years, but one that can finally be answered thanks to the University of Alabama’s archives. The school’s athletic teams have been known as the Crimson Tide since 1901, when head coach “W.J. Gansler brought back a newspaper clipping from his alma mater, Princeton University, describing their football team as ‘the crimson-colored wave of attack.’”
“Gansler liked the sound of that nickname and suggested it to Athletic Director B.L. Noojin.”
“‘He didn’t like it,’ Gansler recalled in ‘The Crimson Tide: The Story of Alabama Football.’ ‘He said it sounded too much like a certain Southern school with which we were playing at the time.'”
What is an elephant?
“The word ‘elephant’ comes from Greek and Latin words meaning ‘ivory,’ and elephants are members of the order Proboscidea (pro-BOS-si-day-uh), which means trunk.”
